The New e-tron EV from Audi: Remap Not Required

We have given plenty of attention to electric vehicles (EVs) from Smart, Tesla, and Nissan. Now it’s Audi’s turn. The German car company is now taking orders for the e-tron EV. Anyone who wants to get on the waiting list and be kept apprised of Audi’s progress can place an order online or by visiting a local Audi dealer. A £1,000 deposit is required.

Audi says the e-tron will not be ready for retail until 2019. In fact, a visit to their website reveals a curious label the company has attached to this car: beta. It would appear as though Audi is targeting tech savvy consumers by associating their EV with the same language used by app developers.

Be that as it may, a lot of talk surrounding Audi in recent years has been about the company’s ability to compete. We have heard about the Audi remap, Audi AI driver assist technology, and even Audi’s foray into developing synthetic diesel. But the e-tron could eventually overshadow everything else the company has done for the last decade. Once the e-tron comes out, we will certainly not be talking Audi remapping any longer.

Starting with an SUV

Audi’s venture into electric vehicles is not unexpected. When London announced plans to eventually ban diesel engines inside the city, the clock started ticking on the internal combustion engine as a whole. Car makers throughout Europe and North America have come to realise that their future is in technologies other than fossil fuels. And right now, electric is the preferred platform.

What’s most interesting is that Audi chose an SUV as their first EV. Nissan started with a sedan, as did Tesla. And the Smart car is, well, the Smart car. Why Audi chose to start with an SUV remains largely a mystery. We can only assume they do not want to compete in the city car market. They want to go after the biggest market they can, which just happens to be SUVs.

We will not question the company’s decision to start there. We would be foolish to do so, given the fact that 5,000 orders have already been taken in Norway alone. It will be interesting to see how many orders are placed throughout Europe by the end of the year. We suspect the number will be impressively high.

For the record, the e-tron is one of only three EVs Audi plans to produce. The e-tron is expected to run at somewhere around 500bhp with a single charge range of just over 300 miles. The car can allegedly get from 0 to 62 mph in under 5 seconds. Beyond that, we don’t know much more about what lurks under its hood.

The Audi remap may be a thing of the past once e-trons start running off the production line. On the other hand, all the hype could turn out to be much ado about nothing. It really depends on how quickly Europeans embrace the EV platform in an SUV.